


Midnight Special (Shine Your Light on Me)

by Harlanhardway (Target44)



Series: The Great Alone [2]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alaska AU, Alternate Universe - Historical, Derek Hale Can Have Nice Things, Derek Hale is a Softie, Derek has PTSD, Derek is a WWII veteran, Fairbanks Alaska is basically Beacon Hills, M/M, POV Sheriff Stilinski, Sheriff Stilinski is a Good Parent, Sheriff Stilinski is a WWII veteran, Stiles Stilinski Takes Care Of Derek Hale
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-04
Updated: 2017-11-04
Packaged: 2019-01-29 04:41:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,400
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12623424
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Target44/pseuds/Harlanhardway
Summary: Derek Hale was a good kid.  He'd always been a good kid.  Noah Stilinski had known him for a long time and was probably one of the few people, maybe the only person, to have known him through all the different stages of his life and to have been witness to all the tragedies that had shaped him.





	Midnight Special (Shine Your Light on Me)

**Author's Note:**

> This is a companion piece to [The Great Alone](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11975340), and contains some spoilers for that fic, but it was written to work as a stand-alone. Thanks to my beta reader [MargaretKire](http://archiveofourown.org/users/MargaretKire/pseuds/MargaretKire/) ([mothdustmouth](https://mothdustmouth.tumblr.com/) on Tumblr)!!! :)))

  
  
Derek Hale was a good kid.  He'd always been a good kid.  Noah Stilinski had known him for a long time and was probably one of the few people, maybe the only person, to have known him through all the different stages of his life and to have been witness to all the tragedies that had shaped him.  
  
To be fair, they had been little more than passing acquaintances before the war.  Derek had been a little too old to be considered one of Stiles' peers and the Hale Family, in general, did not attend church, were not involved in the Knights of Columbus, and were neither heavy drinkers, nor ardent prohibitionists.  They mostly just kept to themselves.  But the Hales were well off and Fairbanks was a small town in the middle of the Alaska Territory.  There was little else to do but watch high school sports and gossip about the rich family down the road.  
  
So, when Private Hale was assigned to his command in the spring of 1942, Staff Sergeant Stilinski had felt as though he already had Derek's measure.  After all, not every fresh-faced eighteen-year-old draftee was prepared to serve at the ass-end-of-nowhere post that was Adak Island.  
  
Noah had been pulled out of the reserves and into active duty only months before the US entered the war and had served on Adak since the beginning.  Spitting distance from the front line, Adak Island was the airbase responsible for halting the Japanese invasion of Alaska.  There were no creature comforts and no privacy; everyone lived in each other's pockets.  When the weather was clear, the airfield operated around the clock without pause, and when the weather was shit, they stood on 24-hour readiness waiting for it to clear up again.  It was a cold gray rock in the middle of the Pacific, without so much as a tree to look at, and it rained 350 days a year.  The monotony, misery, stress and isolation of life on Adak made moral especially difficult to manage.  
  
Private Derek Hale had shown up, fresh out of boot camp, a typical middle child from a big family in a small town: eager to please, somewhat ignorant, and just as cocky as he was insecure.  A decent athlete and a mediocre student, Derek was neither the sharpest tool in the shed, nor the most brilliant of leaders, but he had known how to take direction and how to work in a team.  More importantly, though, he had been stubborn as all get-out and seemed to hold a grudge about as well as a sieve held water.  
  
There had been that thing with the ravens, for example. There hadn't been much wildlife on Adak Island besides the scavenger ravens, and while there were always a few soldiers who tried to turn them into pets, most people got tired of them rather quickly. They were intelligent and mischievous, always getting in where they didn't belong and stealing anything that wasn't nailed down. Noah had caught Derek feeding them a few times, which was against regulation because it exacerbated the pest problem, but he had let it slip for a few months. Until a couple of the birds that hung around base had started swearing at him.  
  
He'd almost shit a brick the first time it had happened. He had been shooing a bird away from his lunch when it had, very clearly and unmistakably, told him to "shove off." After getting over his surprise, he'd pretended not to have noticed. There was probably some sort of regulation against teaching birds insubordination. Privately, though, Noah had wanted to clap Derek on the back and give him an extra ration of cigarettes. Tenacity and good humor were invaluable qualities in a soldier and teaching the damn birds to swear had probably been the best thing for company moral since the invention of hot coffee.  
  
They stayed on Adak until the spring of 1943, when the order came through to advance on the Japanese line. The invasion of Attu resulted in almost 1,500 US deaths, including Derek's older sister, Laura. Derek took his first innocent life, and Noah found out that werewolves were real.  
  
It had seemed, at the time, like an earth-shattering revelation, one Noah had neither the mental energy nor adequate time to process.  Then, when the US advance was over, Derek's unit was transferred away almost immediately and Noah put off thinking about it until the end of the war.  By then, werewolves seemed less unbelievable.  They had become just one more impossible thing amidst a series of impossible things, like the atom bomb and the holocaust.  What were werewolves when compared with the human capacity for cruelty?  What were werewolves when compared to nerve gas, or even to a howitzer?  
  
Noah Stilinski had returned to Fairbanks ready to see his son again, to work a quiet job and sleep peacefully in his own bed, completely apathetic to the existence of werewolves or the goings on of the rest of the world.  When he had heard the news that the entire Hale Family had been killed in a house fire during the last days of the war, he had not expected to ever see Derek Hale again.  He had almost hoped not to, there was nothing left for Derek in Fairbanks but tragedy.  Sometimes it was best to just move on and let the dead bury their own dead.  
  
Derek stayed away for almost a year and when he did come back to Fairbanks, he had looked tired and drawn.  As the months went by, he got only more tired and drawn looking.  Then, dead bodies started to inexplicably pill up around the outskirts of the Hale property and it had all looked very damning in a way that Noah, the Sheriff by that point, sincerely hoped that it wasn't.  Everything was tumultuous and very much on-edge for a while.  Lone werewolves and rogue hunters roamed through town and there were even more dead.  When the dust finally settled, Fairbanks had a new pack, led by Stiles' best friend, Scott, and with Derek there to support and guide him.  
  
It had been a lucky break for Scott, who needed guidance like a fish needed water, and a lucky break for Fairbanks, which needed the stability.  But the whole business had coast Derek his Alpha status.  In exchange, he had gained a new pack, but to Noah's understanding, that was something Derek could have created by himself, were he still an Alpha.  Derek seemed to have come to terms with this, though.  Like Noah always said, he was a good kid.  
  
Noah Stilinski had always been partial towards Derek Hale, considered him dependable and a good ally.  But that didn't mean, not by a long shot, that he was eager for Derek to date his son.  Noah had lost his wife to illness and knew that he would carry that sadness around in him for the rest of his life.  Derek, though, Derek had lost everything.  Noah couldn't even imagine what that must be like.  A man could drown under the weight of that kind of grief and as much as Noah might want to offer Derek his support, he would never wish that kind of a burden on Stiles.  
  
But Stiles was stubborn.  He had made it very clear from a young age that his father had the choice of either supporting his decisions, or no longer being party to them.  So when Stiles came home one evening with the announcement that Derek Hale would be joining them for dinner every Sunday until the day that Derek Hale either died or moved in, Noah had done his best to withhold comment.  
  
It had been almost eight months now and seeing Derek across the dinner table was starting to feel disconcertingly normalized, though Derek still treated the Sheriff like a cross between his Staff Sergeant and his father-in-law.  He was polite, respectful, never cursed, never raised his voice and always showed up for dinner well-groomed and carrying something baked with too much sugar and butter (Noah had a sweet tooth and he recognized a bribe when he saw one).  Derek helped out around the house, never criticized Noah's taste in music and made Stiles laugh.  It was a lot more than most fathers might hope for in a potential son-in-law.  
  
That was no reason for Noah to stop worrying, though.  It was two weeks into the Christmas season and, as the Sheriff well knew, the holidays were hard for people who had lost family.  
  
The boys had retired into the living room after dinner a few hours earlier and Noah could hear the record they had been listening to wind down.  The silence felt especially loud when no one got up to put anything else on.  Noah glanced over at the clock on the wall.  It was approaching midnight.  He was surprised they were even still there.  Recently, Stiles had started spending more nights at Derek's than he had been at home.  
  
Noah stretched and put his paperwork away, getting up from his desk and walking over to stand in the doorway that lead into the living room.  Stiles was sitting on the couch reading, with Derek curled up in his lap.  He had one elbow propped up on the backrest and was holding his book about an inch away from his face, still deep in denial about needing reading glasses.  His free hand carded slowly through Derek's hair.  Derek had his face buried in the soft ply of Stiles' Christmas sweater, looking for all the world like he was asleep.  
  
That was just the thing, though, wasn't it?  Derek was asleep.  Despite all of Noah's worrying and over-protectiveness, that was what Derek did when he was sad.  He didn't drink, he didn't get angry, or violent, or resentful.  He ran with his pack until he was tired and then he curled up in Stiles' lap and slept.  Stiles didn't even seem to mind it.  Stiles, who had never been able to sit still for more than five minutes at a time, seemed to find it calming, joked that it was better than owning an electric blanket, that it saved him on firewood, invited it, even when Derek wasn't sad, because sometimes Stiles was the one having a bad day and it made him feel better too.  
  
Noah could always tell when it was Derek who was sad, though, because he would press his face so far into Stiles' crotch that it looked like he might have trouble breathing.  It was probably a werewolf smell thing and definitely a comfort thing, but to a human it looked, at first glance, a little obscene and it had taken some getting used to.  
  
Noah stepped into the room, heading towards the now silent record player.  Stiles glanced up, his hand pausing in Derek's hair.  He looked down at where Derek's face was pressed firmly into his lap.  Derek looked completely relaxed, like wax melted against a heating grate.  
  
He reddened.  "This isn't--"  
  
"I know."  Noah cut him off.  He glanced over at the couch, shaking his head.  "He's more wolf sometimes than he thinks he is, isn't he?"  
  
Stiles chuckled awkwardly.  "You have no idea."  
  
Noah switched out the record.  They had been listening to an old Leadbelly blues album, but Nat King Cole had a new single out that he wanted to listen to again.  He pulled it out of its sleeve and slotted it into place.  "Just please, cater to my human sensibilities and make sure he always remembers to wear clothes.  I'm not in the army anymore and have no desire to see my grown son's plumbing."  
  
He dropped the needle into the groove and turned around just in time to see Stiles grinning up at him.  He looked self-satisfied and slightly mischievous.  "Your grown son, eh?"  
  
Noah rolled his eyes, "I don't even want to hear it.  You brought this on yourself, I did my best to stay impartial but now I'm committed.  So be nice to him, he's going to be invited to every Thanksgiving and Christmas from now on whether you like it or not."  
  
Stiles' smile just got that much wider.  "Family members get to spend the night."  
  
"As long as I never have to in any way experience any sort of evidence that you do more than just sleep while you're here."  
  
" _And_ , that means I'm no longer the newest member of the family."  
  
"Too bad you're still the youngest.  Don't even think about dumping your chores off on Derek, I have seniority.  As far as I'm concerned, I have officially aged out of shoveling snow, raking leaves and cleaning gutters."  
  
Stiles huffed quietly, still petting carefully through Derek's hair.  "I don't know, Dad, that sounds a bit like a pyramid scheme.  That's not very democratic of you."  
  
"It's not a pyramid scheme, it's a hierarchy and Derek's my favorite."  
  
"You're only saying that because Derek's been buttering you up: calling you sir, doing the dishes, helping to reshingle the roof, bribing Scott's mom into baking apple pies for him to bring over.  Just you wait; he can be a real shitstain when he wants to be.  I'm gonna laugh so hard the first time he gives you the condescending eyebrow."  
  
Noah just smirked back, "Derek would never dare give me a condescending eyebrow.  But," he lifted his hand to cut off Stiles' protests, "if he ever does, you'll be the first to know.  In the meantime, I'm going to bed.  Goodnight, Stiles."  
  
"Goodnight, Dad."  
  
"Try not to fall asleep on the couch; you'll regret it in the morning."  
  
"Sure, Dad.  Sweet dreams."  
  
"You too, son."  
  
As the Sheriff left the room, he could see Stiles lean down and kiss Derek gently on the shoulder.  Derek shifted slightly in his sleep and then settled again.  The fire had burned down low, and the room was bathed in a soft orange light.  Stiles looked happy.  
  
Derek Hale was a good kid.  It wasn't so bad, having him for a son.  
  
Noah could still hear the music playing on in the background as he climbed the stairs to his bedroom.  Nat King Cole sang softly into the night:  
  
_There was a boy, a very strange enchanted boy._  
_They say he wandered very far, very far, over land and sea._

**Author's Note:**

> “Midnight Special” is a song. -_- if you don't know this song... ... ... /SHAKES FIST/ YOU KNOW NOTHING ABOUT THE ROOTS OF ROCK AND ROLL!! But, yeah, it's an old southern folk song. Leadbelly’s recording of it is considered one of the first examples of early rock and roll.
> 
> I gloss over a bunch of WWII history pretty quickly. Other than the werewolf part, it’s all fairly accurate. The Japanese invaded Alaska in what was known as the Aleutian Islands Campaign. They took the islands of Sitka and Attu and bombed the naval base at Dutch Harbor. The US set up an army air base on Adak Island and eventually pushed the Japanese back. The whole thing generally gets overlooked because it was so remote and happened synonymously with the more famous battle of Guadalcanal. The main inaccuracy is that I'm pretty sure deployments to Adak were often short-term, with soldiers being cycled out fairly regularly.
> 
> You can teach ravens how to talk, there are some videos on YouTube, and it's pretty impressive how well they can articulate. That being said, I'm also pretty sure it takes kind of a long time. Let's just pretend Derek is extra good at it because he's a werewolf. Ravens and wolves have a very close relationship. Some ravens have even been known to call wolves to the carcass of a dead animal so that the wolf will open it for them, leaving the scraps more accessible.
> 
> "Nature Boy" was written by Eden Ahbez and made famous by Nat King Cole. It was a number one hit in 1948 (the year in which this story is set) and was the song that first allowed Nat King Cole to reach a mainstream (read: white) audience. It's been covered and re-recorded many, many times.


End file.
